The Letters of Franklin K. Lane, Personal and Political Part 3

To John H. Wigmore

Tacoma, October 25, 1894

MY DEAR WIGMORE,--I have not heard from you for a year. You are in my debt at least one, and I think two, letters. I have sent you an occasional paper, just to let you know I was alive and I am hazarding this letter to the old address. ...

My affairs here have not prospered and I am thinking of going somewhere else. ... Do you think j.a.pan has anything to offer a man such as myself? Would there be any chance there for a newspaper run by an American? Are there any wealthy Americans there who would be likely to put up a few thousands for such an enterprise? ... Life is not the "giddy, reeling dream of love and fame" that it once was, and I have decided on gathering a few essential dollars. Now j.a.pan may not be the place I am looking for, ... but unless I am greatly mistaken, a man who is up on American affairs and alive to business opportunities could do well in j.a.pan. But then this is all a guess, and I want you to put me right ...

Yours very truly,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

III

LAW PRACTICE AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 1894-1906

Law--Drafting New City Charter--Elected as City and County Attorney--Gubernatorial Campaign--Mayoralty Campaign--Earthquake --Appointment as Interstate Commerce Commissioner

Late in the fall of 1894 Lane returned to San Francisco and for some months a.s.sociated himself with Arthur McEwen, on Arthur McEwen's Letter, a lively political weekly which attacked various forms of civic corruption in San Francisco, and made an especial target of the Southern Pacific Railroad, then in practical control of the State.

He also formed a law partnership with his brother, George W. Lane, under the firm name of Lane and Lane. In 1895 a curious case, estimated as involving about sixty million dollars worth of property, was brought to the young attorneys. The Star, of San Francisco, described the issue at stake by saying, "One Jose Noe and four alleged grand-children of Jose Noe appear, who pretend that they can show a clear t.i.tle to an undivided one-half interest in nearly forty-five hundred acres within the city, on which land reside some five thousand or more owners, mostly men of small means."

Upon investigation Lane and his brother became convinced that the suit had been inst.i.tuted as a blackmailing scheme, in an attempt to force the owners to pay for quit-claim deeds; they took and energetically fought the case for the defendants, without asking for a retainer. Their clients formed themselves into what they called the San Miguel Defense a.s.sociation. In a year the t.i.tle of the householders to their little homes was established beyond peradventure.

With the warmth of Latin grat.i.tude this service was remembered. In 1898 when Lane ran for his first political office, as City and County Attorney, the San Miguel Defense a.s.sociation revived its energies, formed a Franklin K. Lane Campaign Club and sent out vivid circulars about Franklin K. Lane, "who n.o.bly fought for us.

... It is now our turn to stand by him and see that he is elected by a very large majority." Their proclamation ended with the appeal, "Vote for Franklin K. Lane, the Foe to Blackmailers."

As Lane's plurality in this first election was eight hundred and thirty-two votes, there is little doubt that his grateful clients played a real part in that success.

The Tacoma printers had also sent a testimonial, which was widely distributed in the campaign, as to Lane's friendship to labor, saying that they, in grat.i.tude, had made him an honorary member of their Typographical Union. The campaign was made on the rights of the plain people, for its chief issue.

In the letter that follows, Lane, in 1913, tells of his formal entry into politics, in 1898.

To P. T. Spurgcon Herald, McClure Newspaper Syndicate

Washington, December 30, 1913

DEAR MR. SPURGEON,--In reply to your inquiry of December 29, permit me to say that I got into politics in this way:--

One day, while on my way to lunch, I met Mayor Phelan, of San Francisco, who asked me if I would become a member of the committee to draft a charter for the city. I said I would, and was appointed. At that time I was practising law and had no idea whatever that I would at any time run for public office, or take any considerable part in public affairs. I helped to draft the charter, and as it had to be submitted to the people for ratification, I stumped the city for it. Later, when the first election was held under it, my friends on the charter committee insisted that I should accept the Democratic nomination for City Attorney. Under the charter, the City Attorney was the legal adviser of all the city and county officials, and it was his business to define and construe this organic law, and the friends of the charter wished some one who was in sympathy with the instrument to give it initial construction.

I was nominated by the Democratic party by an independent movement and was elected; later re-elected, and elected for a third term.

After an unsuccessful candidacy for the governorship, I was appointed a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission by President Roosevelt.

Cordially yours,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

To John H. Wigmore

San Francisco, November 14, 1898

MY DEAR WIGMORE,--This is a formal note of acknowledgment of the service rendered me in the campaign, which has just closed successfully. There were only three Democrats elected on the general ticket, the Mayor, a.s.sessor, and myself. I ran four thousand five hundred votes ahead of my ticket. It was a splendid tribute to worth! I never before realized how discriminating the American public is. A man who scoffs at Democratic inst.i.tutions must be a tyrant at heart, or a defeated candidate. I tell you the people know a good man when they see one.

My opponent was the present Attorney General of the State, W. F.

Fitzgerald, a very capable man, and probably the best man on the Republican ticket. He has been steadily in office for thirty years, in Mississippi, Arizona, and California, and this is his first defeat; and I sincerely regret that I had to take a fall out of such a gentleman.

Now, the perplexing problem arises as to how long I shall hold office. The term is for two years. The new charter comes up before the coming Legislature for approval in January, and that instrument provides for another election next fall, to fill all City and County offices. ...

I don't want to stay in politics, two years in the office will be long enough for me. I hope that I shall make a creditable record.

I can foresee that strong pressure will be brought to bear upon me to act with the Examiner in making things disagreeable for the corporations, and I will have no easy task in gaining the approval of my own party, and of my conscience and judgment at the same time.

Let me thank you again very earnestly for what you did, and believe me. Yours sincerely,

FRANKLIN K. LANE

The City Charter that Lane had helped to draft, with its many new provisions, never before adjudicated, made his first term as City and County Attorney one requiring an especial amount of laborious legal study. To meet the pressing need, Lane organized his corps of a.s.sistants to include several men of marked legal ability and the industry that the task demanded, appointing his brother, George W. Lane, as his first a.s.sistant.

It was partly due to the good team-work of the office that his opinions rendered in four years were as "numerous as those heretofore rendered by the department in about sixteen years," and that during one of the years of his inc.u.mbency "snot a dollar of damages was obtained against the city."

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: FRANKLIN K. LANE AS CITY AND COUNTY ATTORNEY]

To John H. Wigmore

San Francisco, September 25, [1899]

MY DEAR WIGMORE,-- ... As an evidence of what I am doing I sent you a brief three or four days ago in the Charter case. I have another just filed on the question of county officers holding over under the Charter, a third on the new primary law which is a grand thing if we can make it stick, and a fourth on the taxation of bonds of quasi-public corporations, and a fifth on the taxation of National Bank stock.

I have hardly seen my baby for six weeks; have been at the office from nine A.M. to eleven P.M. regularly. And now that I am nearly dead a new campaign is on and I must run again. And, of course, I have enemies now which I hadn't last year.

Thank you once again for so kindly remembering me.

Yours sincerely,

FRANKLIN K. LANE